It is commonplace for users of personal electronic devices, such as cell phones, MP3 music players and PDAs, to also acquire various wired devices designed to connect to those personal electronic devices and function as accessories to those personal electronic devices. Such wired devices have included headphones, battery chargers, audio docking devices, docking interfaces for cars, and home entertainment systems featuring docking interfaces. The more sophisticated among these wired devices have used multi-purpose digital buses in their connections with those personal electronic devices, including digital serial buses at least partly conforming to the “Universal Serial Bus” specification (USB specification) promulgated by the USB Implementers Forum, Inc. of Beaverton, Oreg. These accessories allowed such users to take their personal electronic devices from place to place and enjoy listening to audio and performing other tasks with those devices at each location, as well as on the way to each location.
However, various wireless devices meant to be used as accessories with personal electronic devices have become prevalent much more recently, providing wireless communications capabilities that allow their use with personal electronic devices as accessories, but without the inconvenience of a physical connection. Such wireless devices have also included headphones, wireless home entertainment systems, and wireless interfaces to other audio devices, including car audio systems. The more sophisticated among these wireless devices have used multi-purpose point-to-point RF wireless links permitting the exchange of many forms of commands and data beyond simply audio, including wireless point-to-point links at least partly conforming to the “Bluetooth” specification promulgated by the Bluetooth Special Interest Group of Bellevue, Wash.
While the additional convenience of wireless devices versus wired devices may be attractive, even for users of personal electronic devices capable of communicating with wireless devices, the fact that they have already purchased and own multiple wired devices may discourage them from ever making use of wireless communications due to the considerable investment they've already made. This can be especially true where the wired device they would have to replace is a large and expensive one such as a home entertainment system or audio docking device, or where considerable effort would be required such as the non-trivial task of replacing a docking interface in a car with a wireless one.
Further, despite the convenience of wireless devices versus wired devices arising from the lack of a need for a physical connection with a personal electronic device, a majority of the personal electronic devices with wireless communications capability that are currently available are designed with a limitation that actually puts the use of wireless communications at a disadvantage in comparison to the user of wired communications. For the sake of ensuring security between the personal electronic device and a wireless device, a manually-initiated registration between the personal electronic device and the wireless device must often be performed in which information about that wireless device is stored within the personal electronic device, causing that one wireless device to become the one and only wireless device with which the personal electronic device engages in wireless communications for a given purpose (e.g., listening to stereo audio, or hands-free two-way telephone communications). This means that if a user of a personal electronic device having this limitation wishes to switch from using it with a first wireless device for a given purpose to using the personal electronic device with a second wireless device for that same purpose, the user must manually initiate a new registration between the personal electronic device and the second wireless device. However, initiating the new registration for the second wireless device undoes the registration that had earlier been done for the first wireless device such that if the user wishes to go back to using the first wireless device with the personal electronic device for that same purpose, the user must again manually initiate another registration procedure to do so. This limitation is frequently encountered with personal electronic devices employing wireless communications conforming to the Bluetooth specification. This contrasts sharply in its lack of convenience in comparison to the ease with which it is possible for a user to switch between using any two wired devices that he or she chooses to use with a personal electronic device for a given purpose. For example, switching between a wired pair of high quality around-ear (or circumaural) headphones to a wired pair of in-ear headphones (or earphones) for the purpose of listening to stereo audio is typically a matter of simply disconnecting one and connecting the other, without any device registration requirements.